In 2011, the mainstream media fell over themselves to report that the anti-Catholic group SNAP had petitioned the International Criminal Court (ICC, aka "The Hague" in the Netherlands) to prosecute Pope Benedict XVI and other Vatican officials for purported "crimes against humanity" as a result of their handling of sex abuse cases from many decades ago.

Well, it turns out that SNAP's effort did not get very far. The ICC flatly rejected the group's petition, responding that SNAP's issues "do not appear to fall within the jurisdiction of the court" and that the Court only addresses "the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes."

Translation: The ICC is a serious place and is not interested in being used as a backdrop for P.R. stunts.

The mainstream media: SNAP's very own P.R. machine

To any sober observer, SNAP's complaint was a silly P.R. stunt by a small group of crazies hungry to get media attention. Naturally, the mainstream media enthusiastically went along with SNAP's antic and gave the group's manufactured story enthusiastic attention which it ill deserved.

Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times, for one, who has never seen an attack against the Catholic Church she didn't embrace, trumpeted the nutty lawsuit and then incorrectly declared, "It's unlikely that the [Hague] will take this up, but they won't be able to dismiss it easily. They may have to open up a preliminary investigation."

Meanwhile, Goodstein and the rest of the media continue to turn a blind eye to SNAP's glaring hypocrisy in protecting child molesters themselves.

Goodstein and others in the mainstream media have wholly failed to report the strident efforts by SNAP's founder Barbara Blaine to cover up the fact that she wrote a passionate letter of support on behalf of a doctor arrested with over 100 images of kiddie porn on his computer.

And it has been well over a decade since the media reported how SNAP's ever-hysterical national director, David Clohessy, jeopardized the safety of numerous children when he fully knew in the early 1990s that his brother, Kevin, a Catholic priest, was sexually abusing innocent boys but did nothing to report him to authorities.

So while the mainstream media is always on the ready to publicize and trumpet SNAP's latest act of showboating and grandstanding – like its crazy complaint to The Hague – in remains complicit in the cover-up of SNAP's own wrongdoing.

Comments

Walter is right- the Church needs to go on the offensive here with countersuits against SNAP, et al, andalso go after overzealous and corrupt prosecutors and media. Time to take the velvet gloves off and fight back, bare knuckles. Laying back on your haunches and "rope-a-doping" didn't work – not for the Church, not for the real abuse victims, and certainly not for the innocent priests.

SNAP had nuts in their lawsuit alright: Big Catholic nuts, Barbra and David.

They appear and miracles occur.

One miracle would be that 2 little cretins from Missouri could wind up representing all the Church's victims through out the entire planet at the U.N. with out ever being asked to by said victims and with no other but 2 victims showing up? The very same said: Barbra and David, from the good old USA .

Statistically how likely is that to be a "normal" occurence?

Meanwhile back on the ranch we've got the real Billy Donahue pushing a SNAP political line that fooled no one in Australia when it's been pushed there: the whine about public institutions needing to be examined themselves for sex abuse. Only the idea in Australia wasn't suggested by an Aussie version of Bill Donahue and the Catholic League but by the SNAP equivalent there. Here's Billy's latest .http://www.catholicleague.org/california-sex-abuse-bill-is-alive/ Watch what Billy mouths the Church wants.

Agreed, Walter and Delphin. I will happily donate to support countersuits. The Church should be going after SNAP, which is looking pretty feeble and stupid right now.

And it / we should be pursuing the false accusers. If I were an attorney I would be offering my services pro-bono to any priest, Catholic teacher, etc falsely accused. Not just to defend them, but to sue the liars for defamation. The same goes for corrupt prosecutors and bigoted media. As soon as they step over the line, hit them hard. They are cowards who do not have the stomach for a fight.

There is much we can do as lay people. Spread the truth about SNAP on blogs and sites. Post on news sites. SNAP has people with nothing better to do than troll round news sites posting their garbage (Judy Jones, etc). Hit reply to their comments (they always try to post as soon as a story is published so their comment will be displayed at the top of the comments list) and post the truth about these anti-Catholic bigots. That way they will be exposed every time they post. There's plenty of material here on TMR.

If the ICC dismissed the Complaint as being outside of its proper jurisdictional concerns, then I don’t see where the Complaint – which included the grounds for bringing the Complaint – is not characterizable as “groundless”.

SNAP brought a Complaint that included – if memory serves – charges and allegations of war-crimes, crimes-against-humanity, and torture (sex abuse is torture; refusing to cave to the allegations may also be further torture – that sort of thing).

It was brought under a statute designed to hold rogue warlords and their regimes and troops or militias responsible for any such crimes committed in the process of conducting wars or militarily violent repressive or invasive operations.

To shoehorn the Church into looking like it fell within the purview of this law and this Court, the Pope had to be assigned the role of rogue warlord, priests as the Pope’s ragtag militiamen, and sex abuse (however defined) as a war-crime, a crime-against-humanity, and torture.

The Court refused to buy that Scripting or Framing – and perhaps US courts can profit by that example.

SNAP has tried to salvage what it can by claiming that there is still all that abuse and cover-up and secrecy out there on the part of the Church and so the Vatican spokesman’s characterization of the Complaint is “groundless” isn’t true. But that fudges (who can be surprised?) the issue: the Complaint claimed grounds of war-crimes, crimes-against-humanity, and torture under a certain Statute, and the Court has dismissed the Complaint on those grounds.

Whether there still remains all that secrecy, cover-up and abuse today is another question altogether. And we have yet to see the “grounds” for that.

Maybe a movie would have made the whole thing more vivid. But – alas – Hollywood has now, for its own reasons and on the basis of its own acute and careful assessment, joined the Court in deciding that such ground as there may be just isn’t solid enough to support a major investment of time and resources.

Right from your SNAP-buddy's webpage below. If SNAP thinks they sued the Vatican (as do multiple media outlets, including this one), who are you to dispute them? Are you sure you really hate them as much as you say- would a countersuit, or any legal [or otherwise] action against them, offend you? Why have real abuse victims resisted suing SNAP?

SNAP Legal Action

Welcome to the landing page for all things related to the SNAP and CCR lawsuit filed against Vatican officials and Pope Benedict for human rights violations. Below you will find informative documents and links to other important websites

Tell it to your friends at SNAP-they seem to think they sued somebody. Get out of the fleas ass and try to focus on the intent.

Meanwhile, before you reveal, yet again, you have no logical response to the content or intent of a post, use a dictionary. Try to be right, occasionally, when you launch oft- failed attempts to correct others-http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sue

In response to Mark's suggestion to get the truth out about SNAP, there seems to be a perfect opportunity here (at TMR) for forces opposed to SNAPs (and the others) continued lying and further victimization of real victims to align and beat them back into the rat-hole from which they emerged. If our joint objective is to get to the truth, and SNAP, and a corrupt media and judiciary, are preventing that revelation from happening with their lies and distortions, why would there not be common ground between us? If the common goal is to see justice done for real victims and to ensure no more innocents (children, juveniles, adults, priests) are victimized, why would we not collaborate to reveal all truths, wherever they may lead us? How could permitting the activities of corrupt advocacy groups, lawyers, and media to proceed unchallenged be good for any just cause? Their corruption compounds the abuse problem and perhaps even permits abuses to continue by providing a smoke-screen of lies, deceit and deception. The public is beginning to finally perceive these deceptions. Honest American citizens, of any ideaology, will not appreciate being duped, there will be fallout. Backlash will happen.

The point made at TMR repeatedly that the SNAP corruption serves to worsen conditions for all victims is true; it is the theory of the source of, or force behind, the corruption that is in dispute (i.e. Church-instigated). It is a another theory (with actual evidence) that these forces are instigated simply by both money and their hatred for the Church – since money is their god.

Perhaps this common enemy can unite us, after all. God is wondrous in His workings.

Count me out. After reading what you wrote I don't know if I'm vermin,or if I've come as a victim out of a rat hole. All of a suden you notice you can get more by working with people? Congrats glad you're getting it. But you and me working together? Never.

I wanted compensation. What else could I get but money? Your Church had nothing else but money to compensate me with.

I am up front fighting for the maximum amount of compensation possible for ALL victims. EVERYWHERE.

It's so easy to separate the goats from the sheep here. Of course the professional victims [typical three-card monty scam-artists] would not be receptive to any reconciliaton- that would undermine their sole purpose, which is to continue the antiCatholic hatred and bigotry, which also serves to line their pockets. I won't make the call to ID the scam artitsts here, we can let their own words speak for them as their "writings", such that they are, are preserved in cyber-perpetuity.

The vermin, bigots, haters, scammers are the fraudulent "victims" that make the environment worse for the real abuse victims, including our priests with their lies. Wear any one of those labels at your own pleasure.

Can we presume that the fallout with SNAP occured due to the fact that multiple vermin can not inhabit the same rat-hole? Probably-

Girl, you are fast at making up reality. That's for sure. And your leaps of logic are staggering.

With no transition on your part, no apollogy, I and others are to feel safe with you?

Why in the name of your God would any victim trust you? You think SNAP is vermin and I'm vermin. SNAP didn't cause this scandal. It's the Church. All SNAP is being is the valve of a pressure cooker. Letting the steam off. Or in your case here building the steam up.

Think of the factory workers in Chaplin's Modern Times or the workers in Lang's Metropolis.

SNAP's just a cog in a machine. And you, to quote Dylan: "Are just a pawn in their game"

I've nothing to apologize for, unlike the fraudulent, lying self-appointed victims. Could it be that some frauds have a conscience, after all, and perhaps are feeling guilty about bearing false witness against innocent men? Could they simply be trying to justify villifying the Church, finding that one other guilty priest to make up for the innocent one they villified? Is this why – even after securing justice, they still can't let it go?

There is a very deep-rooted psych reason you can't let go of your hatred after having your day in court and being compensated for an alledged crime (the settlement you opted for is not proof of guilt) that occurred decades ago. You got your justice, every bit you asked for or else you would not have settled. What really gives here, girl?

SNAP is vermin, and so are fraudulent, lying "victims". If you are neither of these, you should have no gripe with my position, or my language. You should vigorously agree with me.

Deviant homosexuals and their protectors (more than likely one in the same) caused "this scandal". The Catholic Church abuse matter is a fly on the elephants ass that is the greater abuse scandal everywhere else but in the Church, including the horrors committed against women. Yet, as a so-called victim, you never address those real victims unresolved justice. Real victims have empathy for all victims. The only empathy you have is for yourself, and a few other like-minded internet trolls.

Over the years, there has been little, if any, suspicion against SNAP practices. If someone claims abuse (generally by "recovered memories," which is a controversial practice that was nearly universally rejected after the American "Satanic Ritual Abuse" panics of the late 80s/ early 90s), no one questions it. They get in line for a big payout. No oversight exists over the money given to those who claim victimhood. The church pays out settlements with little investigation.

While like every institution in the world (teachers, clergy, day care providers, doctors, congessmen, etc.), somewhere out there priests who are actively abusing children. However, the "pedophile priest" stereotype was formed from the same mold as the witch hunts that stemmed from the SRA scares. Not to mention, with no oversight, chances are there are quite a few people motivated by reasons other than being abused — money, anti-religious sentiment, the desire for attention, and so on. Why is it no one openly questions groups like SNAP?

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[...] headline was “The Hague Tosses SNAP’s Nutty Lawsuit Against the Vatican, SNAP’s Latest P.R. Stunt Exposed.” The Hague is the seat of government of the Netherlands, and the base of the International Court [...]

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